Caught in the Fish Trap

Wednesday

Nov 27, 2013 at 12:10 AMNov 27, 2013 at 12:23 AM

David Frum, writing in the Daily Beast, noted that Obamacare cannot be repealed, because too many people are already invested in the system, and repeal at this point would be construed as stripping away something that people think they own.

I’m reading David Kilcullen’s book Out of the Mountains again, and this is what Kilcullen says about fish traps: “Insurgents make fish traps, as do militias, gangs, warlords, mass social movements, religions…and, of course, governments. Like real fish traps, these metaphorical traps are woven of many strands–persuasive, administrative and coercive. Though each of these strands may be brittle, their combined effect creates a control structure that’s easy and attractive for people to enter, but then locks them into a system of persuasion and coercion: a set of incentives and disincentives from which they find it extremely difficult to break out…”

We know what happens to the fish in the trap–the fish ends up dead and eaten.

Frum and Kilcullen are saying the same thing. The reason why Obamacare needs to be repealed now is that if we don’t kill it before it kills us, it will be too late.

Rob Meltzer

David Frum, writing in the Daily Beast, noted that Obamacare cannot be repealed, because too many people are already invested in the system, and repeal at this point would be construed as stripping away something that people think they own.

I’m reading David Kilcullen’s book Out of the Mountains again, and this is what Kilcullen says about fish traps: “Insurgents make fish traps, as do militias, gangs, warlords, mass social movements, religions…and, of course, governments. Like real fish traps, these metaphorical traps are woven of many strands–persuasive, administrative and coercive. Though each of these strands may be brittle, their combined effect creates a control structure that’s easy and attractive for people to enter, but then locks them into a system of persuasion and coercion: a set of incentives and disincentives from which they find it extremely difficult to break out…”

We know what happens to the fish in the trap–the fish ends up dead and eaten.

Frum and Kilcullen are saying the same thing. The reason why Obamacare needs to be repealed now is that if we don’t kill it before it kills us, it will be too late.

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